Morte et Liberté
(Death and Freedom)
Author: Gillian Slater
E-mail: As always, these characters do not belong to me, they are the property of the show's creators, and I'm borrowing them for my own sinister purposes...
PART ONE
Garish floodlighting streaked through the morbid gloom of the forest. The woods were alive with white-clad forensics personnel, plain-clothed detectives and uniformed cops, the trees banded with crime scene tape. Jarod threaded his way over to the officer-in-charge.
"Detective Gardener?"
The balding, bespectacled man looked up at the sound of his name.
"Doctor Jarod Mason, coroner." He extended his hand, and the detective took it, friendly but puzzled.
"Oh, I thought we called--"
"You did, sir, Dr. Jerez, but his wife's having a baby as we speak, so..."
"Right, right. Well, anyway, glad we could get anybody out here at this time of night." He motioned over to the cluster of forensic scientists bent over a corpse. "Party's over there."
Jarod approached the crime scene, squinting in the artificial brightness and peering past all the people. The body was male, he could make out, and by the grey hair probably in his sixties... Even from a distance, Jarod was certain he'd seen the man before. He ducked under the tape, stopped dead, staring at the all-too-familiar face of the deceased.
"NO - Sydney!"
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The insistent bleep of the phone stabbed through Miss Parker's drowsy brain. Half-asleep, she made a clumsy swipe at the handset and knocked it off it's hook onto the floor. Cursing bitterly as she glanced over at the digital clock which beamed "04.22", she rolled and felt around on the carpet, finally grabbing it up and putting it to her ear, simultaneously pulling her duvet over her head.
"What?" she snapped, hoping her abruptness would make it clear she did NOT intend to get into anything deep at this hour.
No reply. She could hear breathing, and the faintest stutter, as though the inconsiderate jackass on the other end was trying to speak but couldn't. And there was only one jackass she thought would be calling her at this hour.
"Jarod, I swear to God--"
"He's dead," Jarod's voice was barely a whisper, "Miss Parker..."
She felt a cold shiver down her back as he tailed off. Something was very wrong - for all his Pretender acting skills, Parker had always been able to tell when he was teasing her, and this was no joke.
"Who's dead, Jarod?" Parker asked, more insistence than annoyance in her tone now. She was sure she heard a stifled sob from the other end, and then Jarod cleared his throat volubly.
"Check your mail," he said abruptly, and hung up.
Dropping the phone, Parker leaped out of bed and booted up her computer. She could feel her tension build as she waited the agonising seconds for the drowsy system to come to life.
"You have E-mail" it announced. Hastily she opened it and held her breath as the image spread down the screen to reveal...
"Oh my god."
END OF PART ONE